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Sarah  T. Hughes (1896 – 1985), American lawyer and federal judge, was a woman of firsts. She moved to Dallas in 1922 with her husband, George E. Hughes whom she had met in law school. George was able to find a job quickly, but no law firm would hire Sarah. Eventually, a small firm gave her rent-free space in exchange for her services as receptionist. As her practice grew and became more successful, Hughes became increasingly active in local women’s organizations. She became involved in politics, first being elected in 1930 to three terms in the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat.

In 1935, she accepted an appointment as a state judge from Governor James Allred for the Fourteenth District Court in Dallas, becoming the state’s first woman district judge. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed her to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. She was the first woman to serve as a federal district judge in Texas. She was the only female judge appointed by Kennedy, and only the third woman ever to serve on the Federal bench.

Hughes was concerned over the ineligibility of women in Texas to serve on juries even though they had the right to vote. She coauthored a proposed amendment that would allow women on juries in Texas, but the bill failed. Due in to part to Hughes’s work, Texas women secured the right to serve on juries in 1954. Hughes was a member of the three-judge panel that first heard the case of Roe v. Wade; the panel’s decision was subsequently affirmed by the Supreme Court.

On November 22, 1963, she was called upon to administer the oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson after President Kennedy’s assassination. According to Barefoot Sanders, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas at the time, “LBJ called Irving Goldberg from the plane and asked, ‘Who can swear me in?’ Goldberg called me, and I said, ‘Well, we know a federal judge can.’ Then I got a call from the President’s plane, with the command ‘Find Sarah Hughes.’ I reached her at home and said, ‘They need you to swear in the Vice President at Love Field. Please get out there.’ She said, ‘Is there an oath?’ I said, ‘Yes, but we haven’t found it yet.’ She said, ‘Don’t worry about it; I’ll make one up.’ She was very resourceful, you know. By the time she got to the airplane, someone had already called it into the plane. We quickly realized that it is in the Constitution.” Hughes recalled, “I embraced Mrs. Kennedy and vice president. We didn’t say anything; there really wasn’t anything to say.” Hughes leaned toward Jackie and told her she’d loved her husband. After the oath, Johnson said, “Let’s be airborne,” and the plane got on its way. Hughes was the first and only woman to have sworn in a U.S. President.

 

 

Hughes continued her work as a federal judge until 1982.

It is also worthwhile noting that there is an SMU connection to Hughes. SMU’s Underwood Law Library has a reading room dedicated to Judge Hughes, the Sarah Tilghman Hughes Reading Room with a plaque in her honor, “In recognition of the outstanding accomplishments of Judge Hughes as an attorney, judge and activist for civil and human rights….”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anne E. Peterson, Curator of Photographs

 

April 20 – it’s Mr. Stanley’s birthday! Born in Dallas, Stanley Marcus (April 20, 1905 – January 22, 2002) was the eldest son of Neiman Marcus store founder Herbert Marcus. He attended Harvard University where he graduated in 1925. It was during his years in Cambridge that he began his life-long hobby of collecting rare books. At the DeGolyer Library, besides his personal manuscripts and papers, the extensive Marcus book collection is also housed.

Joining the founders, other family members came into the store business. After the Harvard Business School, in 1926, Stanley joined the firm. He was a creative man with new ideas for the retail market. Soon, he conceived the idea of weekly fashion shows, the first in the country, and he introduced bridal shows. Eventually, all four Marcus brothers worked in the store and each made his own unique contributions. To avoid confusion between the many Mr. Marcus’s, staff members started using their first names, calling them Mr. Herbert, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Edward, Mr. Herbert, Jr. and Mr. Lawrence.

In 1938, Stanley inaugurated the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion, bringing European and American fashion designers and women of style to Dallas. Called the “Oscars of the Fashion Industry,” among others the Neiman Marcus Fashion Awards were given to: Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, Salvatore Ferragamo, Emilio Pucci, Pierre Balmain, Grace Kelly, Cecil Beaton, Estee Lauder, Valentino, Bill Blass, and Oscar de la Renta.

For the 50th anniversary of the store, in 1957, Mr. Stanley had the brilliant idea of bringing international culture to North Texas in the form of the first Fortnight event celebrating France. Almost overnight, the downtown store was transformed complete with a French theme and products throughout, and Fortnight was an instant success. Besides culture, fashion, and fun, the educational aspects of the Fortnights were equally important to Stanley. Fortnight, focusing on different countries around the world, continued to be a much-loved annual event in Dallas into the 1980s.

Stanley Marcus was an intelligent, cultured man with innovative business instincts. He had a wide array of interests, knowledge and world-wide acquaintances and was an important citizen in the changing city of Dallas.

On Nov. 13, 1918, The Campus, SMU’s student newspaper, reported that the library received Bohemia. This autobiography was written by the Czech immigrant, abolitionist and doctor, Anthony Michael Dignowity. He was born in Bohemia in 1810 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1832. His stories about selling pretzels during Lent and as a snail salesman during boyhood are charming. His descriptions of Austrian military justice are chilling.

The headline of the student newspaper article was “The Libarary [sic] has an interesting book.” This particular book was a part of a very large collection from Methodist minister, publisher, magazine editor and bibliographer E.L. Shettles. At the time, Librarian Dorothy Amann “considers it a most valuable addition to the library.” DeGolyer Library still has this copy of the book, and it is still interesting, still a valuable addition to the collection, and still worth traveling to the Library to read in person.

There are several options of how to read Bohemia under Austrian Despotism: Being an Autobiography. It was reprinted by Books on Demand in 2013 and is available on Amazon for $44.95. It was digitized by the Internet Archives and is available free online. The 1859 edition was recently sold at auction for $245. Thirty other libraries in the U.S. have the 1859 edition including Harvard, Yale, and the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem Pa.

The question remains, why is important to visit the DeGolyer Library and why is it important to read Bohemia or any rare book in person? By visiting the DeGolyer, unplugging from a computer, focusing solely on reading and turning the 158 year old pages, you are transported into another time. You can immerse yourself into the words and read deeply. You feel the paper in your hands. No distractions. Time travel is yours at the DeGolyer Library.

One of the best things about working with any archival collection is that you never know how a researcher will interpret the materials that he or she finds.

Brett Lucas, an Economic Geographer and Spokane area city planner, has been working on a project for a couple of years asking for the opening and closing dates of JCPenney stores, first in California, and then across the nation.  It was an odd request for me, but I sent our Word documents that had been compiled from handwritten lists in the late 1980s to Brett.  I told him that our store opening and closing lists were accurate from 1902 to the late 1980s, but after that, the information was, at best, limited.  He said something about “mapping.”  I promptly forgot and went to my next project.

Brett sent me this map, and the scales fell from my eyes.  Here anyone can see how JCPenney moved from the rural areas to the urban areas.  Looking at lists, just doesn’t give it the same impact.  Now, my mind is churning.  We have two sets of basic data sheets—one from the early 1960s and one from 1971 that will give Brett historical sales and store foot information.  If I had a student scan all of those, I wonder what he can do with that information?

The website is here, if you want to use the map interactively, go to this spot http://arcg.is/2edLBA7.

 

DeGolyer Library will be closed to the general public starting June 1, 2015, as part of the renovation in Fondren Library. Over the next 6-12 months, the library will be moving all of its collections, work spaces, offices, and reading room. Staff will attempt to keep up with reference queries and photo orders as best they can during the renovation, but there will be times when some materials will be completely inaccessible or stored off site. Our various digital collections, of course, will remain accessible: http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/all/cul/

We appreciate everyone’s patience and look forward to serving researchers in renovated facilities in 2016!

For more information about DeGolyer Library and the progress of the renovation itself, bookmark the library’s web page page and the Fondren Renovation blog.